9 Wylden 1119

The Hunted

Newkeep was the last stop on the agenda for the clerics of Aegir. This was fortunate, since the bridge across the Lochvale River was destroyed by the ettin and would take some time to rebuild. The clerics made themselves useful in the village while Seaman Bob and the locals put their capentry skills to work.

With more than enough hands at work on the bridge, the heroes had little to do but wait until they could continue their journey. Their new friend Kiernan shared with them the details of an experience his group had before they faced the wizard Stondylus, in which they saved a young elf who was being brutally beaten and interrogated by sahaugin. Kiernan's party captured from the slain sahaugin an oil painting on hide that depicted a humanoid with black and white skin and a rough representation of the local coastline. The skin itself was destroyed in the fire at the old keep, but Kiernan's description was specific enough to alarm Vondran.

To Vondran's ears, it sounded as though the sahaugin were huting for a darfellan settlement. If that was so, he wanted to find the settlement and either help, warn them, or find out their fate. He pled his case to the rest of the heroes and, after some discussion, they agreed to accompany him.

The party borrowed a rowboat from the town and headed down river. With Vondran's memories of his own destroyed village to guide them, they probed the areas near the mouth of the river for a possible hidden tunnel. Vondran found such a tunnel, but it had been sealed from the inside with an array of large boulders and silt. There would be an alternate entrance, he knew, and set about looking for it.

While Vondran searched the coastline, staying near the boat, those in the boat had a brief and friendly encounter with the Nereid, a merchant ship from Hestmark on its way into Lochvale. The Nereid's bosun hailed the party and warned them that the coastal waters were not safe for small craft because the sahaugin were very active there. The party thanked the sailors for their advice and the two ships parted company.

Aside from a brief sighting of a pair of medium sharks passing by, the party in the boat had no other contacts. After another hour of searching, Vondran found a thick growth of sea kelp that seemed a little too well-tended. As he approached to investigate, his eye picked up movement in the weeds around him: three sahaugin were moving to encircle him, trying to be stealthy but failing.

Vondran sped for the surface with the sahaugin giving chase. He popped his head above water long enough to alert the rest of the group and grab a quick breath before the enemy was upon him. A sahaugin threw a razor net that landed neatly around Vondran and entangled him.

Tika remembered their first sahaugin encounter and quaffed a water breathing potion, then readied her crossbow. Loki, Ash, and Karu let fly with ranged attacks as sahaugin surfaced to attack Vondran. The scout tore himself free from the net, though not without taking some damage from the razor edges embedded in the strands, in time to take a nasty strike from the lead sahaugin's harpoon. Another sahaugin threw a razor net over Ash in retaliation for a well-aimed sling stone.

With three visible targets now, Tika used her spiritual weapon spell to manifest a brilliant, glowing Mace of Pelor. The mace crashed down on the nearest sahaugin head with a resounding and most satisfying thud.

Vondran was ready to deliver some payback. There was a sahaugin within easy reach, but he focused his attention instead on the leader who had skewered him with a harpoon. He swam a fast arc to get clear and then threw strongly, catching the sahaugin in the upper chest and lodging the weapon there. The leader squirmed and shrieked but could do nothing useful with Vondran's weapon in place. One sahaugin dove and vanished while the other charged Vondran and missed with a bite.

Vondran's tactics had one serious drawback to them which now became clear: he was unwittingly pulling the enemy further away from his teammates on the boat. Ash cut herself free from the net and released two sets of magic missiles to finish off the second sahaugin while Loki and Karu rowed to bring the boat closer to the action.

There wasn't much action left. Vondran yanked his weapon out of the sahaugin leader's chest with a vicious jerk that removed the creature's head from its body.

A careful inspection of the suspicious weed cluster revealed a hidden cave entrance, just as Vondran had suspected. The rest of the group drank water breathing potions (all supplied by Kiernan) and dove down to join him, anchoring the rowboat to keep it from drifting away on them.

The tunnel was round, with walls of stone coated with algae. The bulk of the part walked along the floor while Vondran swam. They made it less than a hundred feet before they found themselves under attack again, this time by a group of ravenous monstrous crabs. The hungry creatures advanced and attacked with no hesitation.

Vondran landed a good blow on the first crab with his harpoon. Tika had the sahaugin leader's harpoon, on which she'd cast a light spell, but was not trained in using it as a weapon. She dropped it and pulled out the +1 short spear given to the group by Kiernan and attacked with that. Karu used a siangham and Loki manifested his mind blade.

The crabs proved more difficult in some ways than the sahaugin had. Loki imbued his mind blade with a psychic strike only to discover that the crabs, as vermin, were mindless and immune to his ability. Karu found the creatures' hard shells difficult to penetrate. Tika landed blows with the spear but also took crushing blows from the crab claws in the process. Vondran's speed and superior swimming mobility provided a needed edge, allowing him to hit vital spots on two of the crabs for killing blows. Tika dispatched one with the spear and Loki felled the final creature with his mind blade.

As luck would have it, the vermin in the cave had a treasure trove better than that of the sahaugin in the water. A pair of sea kith bodies, clearly well chewed and long dead, still had coin purses on them containing a fair amount of gold and silver coin and a brilliant fire opal.

The party collected their prizes and continued down the tunnel. It turned a couple of times and then ended with an incline leading out of the water. Vondran led the way with the others close behind. He poked his head above the water line for a look and immediately heard a missile whizz by his ear. He spotted the source: a sahaugin, armed with an exotic-looking crossbow, with two more at its flanks.

Vondran ducked down to warn the party. Tika readied a bolt in her own crossbow and Ash prepared herself with mage armor. Then the group took turns leaping from the water and charging at chosen points.

Loki went first, angling left, and unexpectedly found himself face to face with a sahaugin. He struck out with his mind blade but missed. Vondran charged straight for the crossbow sniper and wounded it. Tika went right, crossbow ready, and fired point-blank at the sahaugin she found in her path. Ash emerged enough to use a sling and provided some covering fire.

With a non-mindless enemy now available, Loki charged up his mind blade for a psychic strike. His mind blade entered the sahaugin's body and flashed brightly, and the sahaugin fell dead at Loki's feet. Vondran moved left, threw his harpoon and killed the crossbow-wielding sahaugin where it stood. Tika stepped back and fired another bolt at the final assailant, which closed with her and landed a heavy blow with its trident. Vondran circled around and slew the creature with another harpoon throw.

The party retrieved the sahaugin crossbow and examined it. It was an aquatic crossbow, designed to be used in or out of water with equal accuracy. Tika shouldered the weapon and helped herself to the dead sahaugin's quiver of bolts and the party moved on.

A few hundred feet down, the passage opened out into a wide, round cavern with a series of other tunnels leading out. Sitting in the middle of the cavern, resting against a large rock, a lone darfellan quietly watched the party enter his domain. He had a shining silver harpoon in one hand in a casual, relaxed grip. The group approached cautiously with Vondran in the lead and weapons down.

The darfellan calmly greeted the party and invited them to approach. His name was Athesto, he said, and this large space was the habitat area of the darfellan settlement. Athesto was a wanderer and a hunter, he explained. He had come upon the settlement by chance as the sahaugin were routing the few remaining darfellans. Athesto helped to cover the escape of a handful of women and children and was struck by the valor and honor of the darfellan warriors, so he had decided to remain at the settlement and defend this space from the invaders. Initially there had been hundreds of sahaugin, but once battle was over the majority of the force had moved on. Only a baron, a cleric, and a couple of dozen warriors had remained, and Athesto had been chipping away at those numbers for months in his defense of the habitat.

That was all Vondran needed to hear. He immediately proposed that Athesto join the party in routing the rest of the sahaugin. Athesto knew where they were holed up -- they had claimed the settlement's temple to the Whale Mother as their lair -- and agreed quickly to lead the group there and fight with them. On the way out of the cavern, Vondran noticed a mural painted on the cave wall that depicted a mighty hunter with a silver harpoon. The figure in the mural looked exactly like Athesto, down to the details of the markings. Vondran took this as a sign that Athesto was a powerful ally and kept close by his side.

The group went back through the first tunnel and then opened a hidden door that Athesto pointed out to them. This led to another water-filled passage that turned upward and ended in the floor of the temple.

Once again Vondran poked his head up for a quick look around. He spotted nine sahaugin in the temple. Most had their backs to the pool, paying attention to the three on the dais at the end of the space. He and Athesto chose a strategy, informed the group, and executed.

Acting in unison, Vondran and Athesto leapt out of the water and hurled their harpoons at the first target they each saw. Vondran's cut clean through the chest of one of the sahaugin soldiers for an instant kill; Athesto's also hit the mark and lodged there, effectively grappling a second target. One by one the rest of the party followed suit, with Loki hurling his mind blade for a hit.

One of the sahaugin leaders was a four-armed mutant, and another was a well-armored male with a greatspear. The sahaugin with the greatspear shouted orders while the mutant chanted and gestured. Tika and Karu felt the cold grip of dread on their hearts -- the result of a bane spell from the mutant.

The darfellans were not hindered by the spell. Vondran kept on the move, threw strongly at another sahaugin and achieved another instant kill. Athesto yanked his harpoon out of his victim's body with lethal force and caught it neatly, ready to attack again. Tika countered the bane effect with a bless spell and readied herself for combat in time to see two more sahaugin, armed with crossbows, appear on the dais from a tunnel in the back.

The cleric cast another spell and a bolt of crackling evil energy lashed out at Athesto. He seemed to shake it off and even grinned a little as he saw Vondran strike another soldier with his harpoon. Athesto hefted his harpoon and charged through the front line directly for the leader with the greatspear. Karu and Loki focused on the enemy before them and killed it together.

Remembering her dramatic tactic in the old keep, Tika again cast enlarge person on herself, causing her to rise out of the water and grow at the same time. She charged forward and menaced the sahaugin soldiers with her crossbow, which had also grown in size with her. The sahaugin cleric took cover behind the altar and created a spiritual weapon to attack Athesto from the side. The other sahaugin followed suit and concentrated their fire on Athesto. The hunter took several hits but ignored the damage, choosing to focus his attention on the baron and retaliate with multiple telling blows. Vondran continued to move and strike, killing two more sahaugin on his own, while Loki and Karu combined to fell another. Ash concentrated on the cleric and used her lesser sonic orb spell to good effect. Tika aimed a bolt from her now-large aquatic crossbow at the cleric and put an end to the creature with a shot that pierced its heart and left the dead body pinned to the temple wall.

Athesto roared and plunged his glowing harpoon into the baron's body one more time with a ferocity that ripped the creature nearly in half. The remaining sahaugin ran in fear down the back tunnel, but flight would not save them. The party pursued, with Athesto declaring that there was no escape that way.

The tunnel plunged under water and ended in a flooded chamber. With nowhere to hide except at either side of the opening, the party knew exactly where their enemies had to be. The two darfellans moved to the lead and once again coordinated their movements. On a silent three count Athesto and Vondran dove into the room, one moving left and one moving right, and thrust their harpoons at the spaces to either side. Both hit sahaugin with fatal stokes.

Now, with the sahaugin dead, the party had time to examine their surroundings. The flooded chamber looked to be the cleric's quarters. They found several items of interest there including a fine leather cloak of the manta ray, a number of darfellan sculptures carved from bone and coral, and a bag of large pearls. The sahaugin's masterwork weapons, especially the baron's masterwork greatsword and two more aquatic crossbows, were also claimed as prizes. Tika took possession of the cleric's unholy symbol with the intention of melting it down and selling it as raw metal. The group also found, around the cleric's neck, a familiar object: a golden pendant of a lidless eye identical to the one taken from the sahaugin mutant in Stearns.

Athesto claimed nothing for himself; he told the party they had earned the spoils of the battle and were welcome to everything the sahaugin had with them or on them. Then he turned to Vondran and complimented the scout on his fighting. "You fought with skill and valor," he said, and he handed Vondran his silver harpoon. "This harpoon belonged to a darfellan, and it should be used by a darfellan."

As a confused Vondran accepted the magic weapon, Athesto stepped back and shimmered for a moment, then morphed into his natural form -- that of a juvenile bronze dragon. Athesto explained that he had come upon the battle as he had said, but in dragon form. In that form he had helped the last few women and children to escape the sahaugin. Fascinated by the battle at first, he drove the sahaugin from the habitat and decided to honor the memory of the fallen darfellans by making his home there and protecting it from the sahaugin. He had modeled his darfellan form after the mural in the main cave and found the harpoon among the settlement's valuables. He told Vondran that the harpoon is magic; it provides a modest edge in combat but feels as though there is far more power in the weapon than that. It will be up to Vondran to learn what that power is and how to use it.

The party gathered their prizes, which included the carcasses of the monstrous crabs, and returned to Newkeep. The crab meat became the featured course at a meal to celebrate the near completion of the bridge and the party's victory over the sahaugin.

In the final days of construction, Tika and the others visited the settlement again several times. Athesto welcomed them as friends and was happy to talk with them about the darfellans, about himself, and life on the coast. Tika made sketches of the murals in the habitat and took notes on her observations of the darfellan culture.

The group took their leave of the dragon and packed their things. On 13 Wylden they became the first to cross the new bridge and put Newkeep behind them, at least for now. Their next stop would be the port city of Corsuhn, where they could convert their goods into cash and book passage back to Marhaven.

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